Following the phenomenal success of the Apple App Store, the Android Market is now open for business. This means that Android developers can now start putting up their applications for sale. The Android Market is currently open in the US. With Android Market, users can easily download apps to their Android-powered phone. Users can also rate the apps they've downloaded and leave comments. These users' ratings along with anonymous usage statistics help determine how apps are ranked and presented within Android Market.If you are an Android developer you will be able to register and upload your applications starting 27th October 2008 (next Monday). You will need to register and pay a one time $25 application fee which is much cheaper than the $99 that you need to pay to App Store.

There are already over 50 apps available in Android Market today. You can view a showcase of some of these apps—which include multimedia, location-based tools, barcode scanners, travel guides and games—at Android Market. Now that Android Market is live and ready for contributions, we will be seeing developers adding their own apps starting next week.

Developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees—Google does not take a percentage!